High-Throughput Extraction of the Distributions of Leaf Base and Inclination Angles of Maize in the Field

Distributions of leaf base and inclination angles are important crop phenotypic traits, influencing light interception and productivity. Light detection and ranging (LiDAR), and especially Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), provides unprecedented detail of the three-dimensional (3-D) structure of the crop canopy. Recent research mainly focuses on the leaf base and inclination angles of maize at the individual level or at lower planting density. It is difficult to extract the distributions of leaf base and inclination angles of maize in the field due to the interlocked and overlapped nature of leaves. In this study, we have proposed a high-throughput method to extract the distributions of leaf base and inclination angles of maize in the field. Following the separation of the leaf and stem of maize, hollow cylinders with different thicknesses were used to extract the local leaf points from the separated leaf points based on each stem fitted line, and the Density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) algorithm and singular value decomposition were used to calculate the leaf base and inclination angles. The distributions of leaf base and inclination angles of maize in the field with different cultivars (Jingjiuqingchu 16 (A1), Tianci 19 (A2), Jingnuo 2008 (A3), Nongkenuo 336 (A4), and Zhengdan 958 (A5)), planting densities (3.32 plants/m ² , 4.65 plants/m ² , 6.64 plants/m ² , and 8.63 plants/m ² ), and growth stages (jointing, silking, and filling stages) were extracted and analyzed, and these performed well against the validation data. In addition to TLS data, the extraction of the distributions of leaf base and inclination angles based on LiBackpack and UAV-LiDAR data was also discussed. This further validated the potential of the method proposed in this study for the extraction of the distributions of leaf base and inclination angles of maize in the field. Furthermore, the relationship between maize with different leaf base angle distributions and the daily cumulative APAR (Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation) was analyzed, which demonstrated that compact maize cultivars exhibited higher light interception capabilities than scattered ones under high planting densities. The distributions of leaf base and inclination angles exert a substantial influence on the light interception capacity of maize, thereby exerting a consequential effect on maize yield. The high-throughput extraction of these distributions in maize fields holds significant importance for studying the optimal maize cultivar in conjunction with radiative transfer models.